


Wrath and Temperance

by Anarchyinplasma



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Mostly Canon Compliant, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 09:42:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16015307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarchyinplasma/pseuds/Anarchyinplasma
Summary: A small look into the long, complex, and adorable relationship between Mara and Petra.





	Wrath and Temperance

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry it takes so long to post things these days, but I've been working on this one since before Forsaken hit, so I hope you enjoy.  
> P.S. this is my first attempt at smut, so I apologise in advance.

Mara Sov had a serious problem. Not the kind of problem that could be solved with the powers of the void and her army, or her exceptional ability to play the politics of the Awoken court and navigate the endless circle of confusion that was The City’s complicated relationship with the Reef, nothing so trivial.

She had a crush.

So far, Mara’s list of confidants included herself, her pillow, and her coffee machine (she hoped that Uldren hadn’t yet bugged that particular device). But even this was not an insurmountable issue. The real problem came with the fact that her crush was Petra Venj. The Queen’s Wrath, Mara’s right hand in politics and the one perfect ally whom she allowed herself to trust completely. At this point, she fully suspected her love life to only get worse.

\---

Petra Venj had a serious problem. Of course, her skill-set lent itself to all kinds of problem solving, but sadly the problem of “being head over heels for your monarch” wasn't too easily solved with knives, guns, bullets, commandos, or the occasional tank.

Every day, Mara would call Petra to her office, Petra would arrive, always exactly punctual, (she wondered if Mara knew she hung around outside the door for several minutes to make sure she was on time), she would be summoned into the throne room, and then the private office behind that; where she would spend many hours engaged in trying to remember her topics of conversation and attempting to not get lost in her Queen’s gorgeous eyes.

She was often distracted by glimpses beyond the office into her majesty’s attached quarters, brief glimpses of silken sheets and the huge single-pane panoramic window that gave Mara an uninterrupted view of infinity. On more than one occasion her Queen has caught her staring and given a quiet cough to get them back on track, and then Petra has to go back to trying not to drown in Mara’s brilliant cerulean eyes.

She’s spent a lot of time in her own private quarters thinking about those eyes, they seem to her to glow even more than other awoken, so alive with energy that Petra feels like staring into them could give her an electric shock. She’s spent almost as much time thinking about the way Mara slouches on her throne, legs apart, the picture of haughty arrogance and smug superiority like she expects any who seek an audience to drop to their knees and worship her (Petra, granted, has spent many hours with her hand between her legs, thinking about doing exactly that in several ways, but she reasons she should be a special case).

\---

Mara Sov loves her brother, even if they’ve drifted away from each other since their much younger days, even if they’ve always had secrets from each other, he is her blood sibling, in some ways he understands her better than almost anyone else, when they do occasionally see each other on matters not purely business their words are normally filled with a thousand subtle teases and hints; however if looks could kill Uldren Sov would at that precise moment have been obliterated in a caedometric firestorm followed by a nuclear winter and then sucked into a black hole by his ridiculous emo fringe.

Her brother gave her a mocking grin from his position a safe distance away; a hand pressed over his heart in mock-horror.  
“Sister I’m so wounded, to think that your toaster would get to know such information before your own brother!” He snuck in a glance and could not resist a laugh at his sister of all people pouting like a moody child. “My my Mara, I wonder what you’d think if I told you even half the dirty little secrets your precious little crush has.” It took all of his willpower to remain standing as the Queen’s head snapped up like a whippet from the starting line, and anyone within the room would likely have been supremely disturbed at the sight of the demure and serious awoken royalty respectively cackling like a mad man and glaring like a moody teenager who’d had her phone taken away.

Naturally at this moment Petra arrived for her daily briefing, footsteps echoing down the short corridor and forcing the siblings to sober up quickly. Mara gave her brother another deathly glare as the door opened, and Petra immediately bowed her head upon seeing Uldren in the room.  
“My Queen, my Prince, I apologise” she stuttered slightly, surprised at Uldren’s presence as this was not a regular occurrence and backing up; “I’ll wait outsid-” Uldren cut her off swiftly.  
“No need, I was just leaving, the Queen must keep her schedule of course, otherwise it could be positively scandalous...” His words trailed off as he circled the throne theatrically, leaving the Queen rolling her eyes at the display, bending down to whisper privately in his sister’s ear before he took his leave. Petra averted her eyes and ears in respect as Uldren passed along a final message with a grin on his face the size of Saturn.  
“Your feelings are very reciprocated sister.”

He strolled out of the throne room, leaving Mara staring at his retreating back like a hawk until the door clanged shut and Petra opened her mouth.  
“My Queen? Are you well?” Mara snapped back to reality faster than an emergency NLS drive deceleration and stood abruptly.  
“Yes of course, please follow me.” She lead the way back into her office, cursing out her brother every step of the way and hoping she wasn’t imagining the phantom feeling of Petra’s eye glued to her backside for every second of the short walk.

Half of the meeting passed as normal, albeit with slightly more repetition than was the norm as the Queen found herself unable to pay attention properly, Petra was likewise distracted, and the conversation eventually ground to a halt entirely as Mara stumbled over the word yes while her eyes traced the graceful line of Petra’s throat over and over again and she wondered how it would feel if she were to just lean across the table and layer butterfly kisses up the gentle curve of her neck…

Too late did she realise they’d both been staring at each other in desire so thinly veiled it might as well have been wearing lingerie with no other interaction.

Petra swallowed around the lump in her throat, watching Mara’s eyes follow the movement of her neck, and slowly extended her hand across the table. The second her fingers brushed Mara's the Queen’s breath stuttered and she flinched. Petra yanked her hand back as though burned and shot to her feet; hands coming up to her mouth in shock.

Before she could get out a single word of the apology rushing towards her lips like a torrent Mara had stood to match her and brought their lips together.

Petra's brain short circuited, every synapse firing in useless lesbian mode as she swallowed her words and her monarch’s tongue in one go. Mara grinned against her lips as Petra eagerly accepted her tongue and gave a small moan as Mara pulled her Wrath’s hair from its neat and functional up-do and wound her hand in it, pulling backwards a tad and unable to avoid her satisfaction at seeing Petra looking almost delirious after just one kiss.

“I-” Petra started, cutting off abruptly as the hand tangled in her hair pulled a bit and Mara's lips curved upwards a tiny bit more as she realised how much Petra was enjoying her current situation. Still there would be time for that later. She released her hand and stepped towards her private rooms behind the office, beckoning Petra follow her.

After the soldier had hammered her brain back into a semblance of working order she followed, and found Mara waiting for her cross-legged on the bed. She gestured for Petra to sit and waited for her to do so before starting what promised to be an incredibly awkward conversation.  
“Before we start… whatever this turns out to be…” Mara wet her lips nervously, noticing how Petra’s eye darted down to linger on the movement before returning to her face as a whole. She gave a shy smile. “I don’t know what to do about your duties in this situation”. When Petra offered no response her Queen pressed on. “I suppose it’s probably just best if we let it happen naturally for now.”

Gently, Mara leaned in, ready for Petra to offer any kind of denial now that the subject had been tentatively broached but nothing came. Satisfied, Mara immediately resumed her earlier activities, fisting her hand in Petra’s hair and dragging her forwards for a deep kiss. She kept control and pushed further, shoving Petra onto her back with Mara’s tongue still in her mouth and her sovereign’s hands running the length of her body; very slowly, clothing was removed until Petra lay on her back half-naked, Mara straddling her with a grin and letting her hands wander where they pleased.

Petra grimaced when Mara ran her fingers over a recent bruise on her hip, prompting a repeat. When Petra grimaced again, Mara poked her side near the bruise with a grin.  
“How did you get this?” Petra shrugged.  
“Sparring, hit the mat at an angle.” Mara made a noise in her throat that was halfway between pleased and sympathetic.  
“I’ll have to ask your partners to be more careful, I can’t have them wounding my bravest soldier when she’s not even on the field.” Her fingers resumed their wandering until they found another sensitive spot near the waistband of Petra’s trousers. The soldier flinched as Mara dragged her nail across it.

The Queen stopped and leaned forwards, bracing her arms across Petra’s collarbone and catching her bottom lip in between her teeth mid-gasp. Petra whined and she let it go, then issued an order.  
“Stay still for fifteen seconds, if you can manage that, I’ll give you a special reward.” She ground her hips into Petra’s to make her point but the soldier didn’t return the favour. Mara gave her a smile full of teeth. “Good girl, let’s see how hard you’re willing to work for my affection hm?” She took advantage of her position and traced Petra’s lips very slowly with her tongue, moving over to bite playfully around her neck before she sat back up and started counting.

At one, she let her hands roam free, enjoying her soldier’s finely sculpted body, by eight, she was dipping her hands beneath the waistband of Petra’s uniform and dragging her fingernails around, at nine she pinched sharply at Petra’s clit. The soldier grunted but didn’t flinch, making a small whine in her throat as her Queen flicked her nails around as an afterthought. Mara smirked down at her.  
“Good girl” she placed a kiss on Petra’s neck and resumed her counting. “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen” she ground her hips into Petra’s and moved one finger into her entrance. Petra moaned and bucked her hips, Mara smiled.

“Very close, but not quite. I think that deserves a lesser reward though, you did very well for me.” Mara pulled her slightly wet fingers out of Petra’s trousers and gave a good show of cleaning them up with her tongue, then she leaned forwards again.  
“Now then, what would I like to do to you” she purred, delighting in the way Petra’s visible eye dilated and her lips released shorter and more ragged gasps. She pulled Petra’s hands up and held them crossed at the wrists above her head, then trailed her fingers up and down her sides. Her soldier squirmed but stayed firm, while she could easily have broken Mara’s grip and probably had her way with the Queen quite easily, she was quite enjoying being at her mercy.

Mara grinned at the continued squirming.  
“I could tease you like this for hours…” she trailed off and watched Petra’s face run the gamut from fear to longing with a smile. Ever nonchalant, she discreetly checked her timepiece for how long they had until her ever present schedule dictated she deal with other problems. The display glared a paltry twelve minutes back at her. Mara sighed. “I don’t think we have the time for that though, so until I can get you back here, I think I’ll tide you over for being such a good girl earlier.” With that, she moved her free hand back beneath Petra’s underwear and started to work her up, mindful of their time restraint, Mara pushed one finger straight in and gasped at the feeling, Petra squirmed and moaned underneath her, but Mara kept a firm grip on her wrists and continued her exploration, she tested the waters with another finger but opted against it just yet, instead using the rest of her hand to play around with Petra’s clit some more before she moved onwards. Her alarm bleeped a seven minute warning at them and Mara quickened her pace, rubbing circles faster and faster with her thumb and adding another finger to try and find that spot which could make Petra melt.

Her soldier bucked and squirmed deliciously, and Mara knew she’d found what she needed to, she sped up more and listened to Petra’s moans as she came undone around her fingers. Mara pulled her hand away and gave Petra another show of cleaning up her fingers, then finally released her hands and moved away; Petra stopped her with a gentle hand and went in for one final kiss, Mara indulged her a moment and then pulled away.

As Petra started to gather her discarded clothes and set about making herself presentable again, Mara stood and straightened out her own clothing, hoping to at least look a bit controlled when Variks came by for a meeting about the state of the Fallen houses and could smell Petra all over her. Once Petra had finished, Mara fixed her hair for her before she granted her one final kiss and sent her out of the door with strict instructions to be back as soon as she’d finished her duties that night no matter the state she was in.

The day crawled past for both women, Mara went through meeting after meeting, including a surprisingly professional Variks who only made three comments about how “strong” Petra was and what a ”good choice” Mara had made in her “mate”, which she politely ignored (no matter how normalised the Fallen got, they’d always maintain some odd fixes in their culture). Petra meanwhile had military duties to attend, the training of new recruits, shadier things like need to know black operations and paperwork about the state of military research, as well as sparring with the Royal Awoken Guard.

It was this last duty which caused her no small amount of avoidable pain. Petra was by all means a capable and vicious combatant, be it with staves, firearms, hand to hand, improvised weaponry, she was extensively trained in all areas of warfare; even the Royal Guard considered her a capable equal to be respected, but her distraction ensured she had already suffered layers of bruises by the end of the first hour, as they moved out of knife-based combat and Petra and her partner rotated out of the primary combat area, the Head of the Guard Aaya Taan pulled her aside.

“You seem more distracted than usual today.” Petra at least had the decency to blush.  
“I apologise for that, I am dealing with some more personal issues today.” Aaya rolled her eyes. “Cough up, Venj, I’ve known you long enough, which one of you confessed and who’s the lucky girl.” Petra stuttered for a moment and the rest of the guard quietly turned their ears toward the conversation as hushed bets were exchanged.  
“How could you even-”  
“Because you’re always like this when it’s a new girl” Aaya smirked, “every time, it’s like you’ve forgotten how to breathe for the rest of the day. That and we can all see the bite marks on your neck.” Petra coughed and blushed harder, bringing a hand up to cover her neck sheepishly.

“So who is it?” Aaya gave a small genuine smile, “come on, it’s been so long since I got embarrass you in front of a new girl.” Petra bit her lip.  
“It’s… complicated…” Aaya rolled her eyes.  
“Why?”

Petra groaned.  
“Societal complications.” Aaya sighed.  
“You’re the Queen’s Wrath, there’s only eight, maybe nine people you’d have any sort of difficulty with, and I know it can’t be Hallam, Zire, Pavel, or... “ she gave a theatrical shudder, “Uldren, so come on, spill.” Petra sighed and mumbled Mara’s name under her breath. Aaya rolled her eyes.

“You’re not getting off that easily, come on, who?” Petra mumbled again and scuffed the ground with her toe with uncharacteristic shyness. Aaya crossed her arms with an unimpressed look on her face. “Look, either you can tell me, or I can beat it out of you, which with the way you’re fighting today will not be hard, so you might as well tell me before I’m the second woman to get properly physical with you today.” Petra groaned and Aaya took pity on her. “Fine, just whisper it to me, I won’t say anything to anyone, promise” she leaned forwards until her ear was beside Petra’s mouth.

A second later a shout of “MARA!?” echoed throughout the room while Petra flinched and rubbed her ear. The rest of the guard looked about as stunned as their commander, who took a moment to collect herself as the majority of the guard surreptitiously passed wads of currency around to one very smug-looking individual with a ridiculous emo fringe just visible under his helmet. Petra gave Aaya a glare as the ringing in her ears subsided and hit her in the stomach. Aaya flinched.  
“Ow, what was that for!?” Petra gave her a flat look and pointed at the Royal Guard all now staring in their direction. Aaya nodded.  
“Fair” she said, “but I’m still sending you back to her early so at least be nice to me.”

Petra was off before Aaya could even give her a formal dismissal.

She went directly to the throne room, passing Variks on her way who made a perplexing comment about a “strong choice indeed” and almost sprinting into the Throne room before she remembered she was supposed to have at least a semblance of decorum and opened the door with as much control as she could manage. To her immense surprise the only occupant was the Prince, leaning casually on the backrest of the throne with a smirk on his face.  
“My sister is expecting you.” he told her, “please, go right in.” Petra thanked him and headed for the door.

She knocked, waited, straightened her clothing, and was caught thoroughly by surprise as the door whisked open and a hand closed around her wrist before she was yanked inside and shoved up against the wall with Mara’s tongue already reaching into her mouth.

Petra groaned as Mara continued her rough handling, hands roaming her body and ghosting the bruises she’d sustained during her distraction; a particularly rough grab on her hips had Petra hissing a curse around her Queen’s tongue. Mara pulled back a moment and Petra got her first actual look at what her lover was wearing.

The Queen had gone all out to impress, full lilac lingerie, contrasting beautifully with her skin-tone, Petra’s jaw went slack at the sight, she spent a full ten seconds staring at the sight she’d been treated to, committing every thread and lack thereof to memory. Mara meanwhile was busy with her soldier’s clothes, pulling up her shirt and gasping at the sheer amount of marks that littered Petra’s body; she gave the other woman a flat look and lightly scratched her nails up Petra’s abs.  
“I thought I told you to be careful.” she purred, “the only marks that should be on you are mine.” Petra shrugged, and then winced at the movement.  
“I got distracted.” Mara raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to elaborate. Petra sighed.

\---

Petra caught Aaya Taan grinning from ear to ear as she shunted Petra towards her wife for knife sparring. Laila Taan was an aggressive fighter, preferring a high tempo and vicious strikes to keep an opponent off balance as much as possible, the only person that actively enjoyed fighting her was Aaya herself, but after a bout of accidental voyeurism, the rest of the guard had elected to bar them from one on one combat.

True to form, the second that Aaya blew the whistle Laila lunged, grabbing Petra’s leading forearm and going for a straight jab. Petra twisted, yanking Laila around and swapping her knife hand to attempt a quick and clean slice across the neck, but Laila countered by releasing her arm and driving an elbow backwards into Petra’s stomach. She grimaced, winded, raised her guard and backed off.

Off to the side, Aaya stifled a laugh as Laila dropped her arms limp and full on pouted.  
“You’re no fun distracted Venj.” she rolled her eyes and Petra lunged, going for a series of quick strikes that were easily deflected before Laila made her own series of stabs, catching Petra’s gut multiple times before she backed off again.

Laila followed her retreat, making wide sweeping strikes and interspersing them with quick jabs with her free hand until Petra stumbled trying to block both and fell. Laila caught her, spun her almost like a dancer, placed the blunted point of her practice stick to her neck, and declared her deader than Uldren Sov’s smile.

\---

Mara raised an eyebrow.  
“I’m glad I left such an impression that you couldn’t stop thinking about me even in the middle of a knife fight. But I think we’ll have to dissuade you from such lax behaviour in the line of duty.” She considered her options for a moment and then issued her command. “Strip.”

Petra followed the order without question, down to nothing in a few moments, before Mara pulled her away from the wall, through the office, and into her bedroom proper. She sat at the edge of her bed, every inch regal and refined, and Petra knelt without thinking, Mara raised an eyebrow, saying nothing, and her soldier blushed, chin tucked to her chest as colour continued to rise to her face. Mara smiled down at her.  
“You’re ever so eager to serve aren’t you” she reached out and gently cupped Petra’s chin with a smile, “have you thought about it before? On your knees, ever so willing to serve your Queen like a good soldier?” Petra nodded as much as she could and Mara gave her a toothy smile. “Tell me” she commanded, Petra swallowed around the lump in her throat.  
“Throne” she whispered with a dry mouth and Mara laughed.  
“That does make a lot of sense, you are such a good little soldier.” She watched Petra’s eye dilate almost comically fast and repressed a giggle. “I think you’ll enjoy making things up to me for being distracted.” Slowly, Mara uncrossed her legs and let them rest to either side of Petra. “Take initiative, soldier.”

Petra smiled and reached up to remove her Queen’s underwear, Mara slapped her hands away and held her wrists to the bed.  
“No hands” she added, lifting her hips expectantly towards Petra’s mouth. Her soldier rolled her eyes and leaned forwards, gently catching the fabric of Mara’s panties with her teeth right above her clit and slowly dragging them down her Queen’s legs. She pulled them far enough down to not get in the way, and leaned back in.

Petra started by leading soft, gentle kisses up the inside of Mara’s thigh, slowly teasing closer and closer to her entrance. The Queen grinned and lazily went about removing Petra’s hair from it’s confinement, gently carding her fingers through silken hair and enjoying her soldier’s delicate ministrations. Petra moved around her Queen’s clit, leaving gentle nips nearby and torturing Mara by never quite committing. She brought her now free hands around and held Mara’s hips, before finally getting to the main event.

The Queen gasped and writhed in pleasure, her grip on Petra’s hair tightening until it was almost painful, Petra smiled against her clit and kept going, tracing out endless looping patterns with her tongue that had Mara moaning in ecstasy with Petra’s name a constant whispered chant on her lips. Her soldier worked even harder for the praise, increasing the speed and strength of her strokes in an effort to give her Queen the best possible orgasm she could muster. Mara moaned and held her closer, Petra’s hands gripped tighter on her Queen’s hips, holding her as still as possible as she shuddered and finally came apart around Petra’s tongue.

Mara slumped backwards onto her bed as Petra dutifully cleaned up after herself with a smile on her face. Mara whined when she finished and lay down beside her, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t agitate the litany of bruises covering her abdomen. Mara noticed and sat herself back up, gently maneuvering Petra into her back and cuddling up to her with a gentle kiss. With light pressure, Mara stroked her fingertips over Petra’s bruised muscles, taking delight in both her sculpted physique and the shivers she gave whenever her Queen brushed a particularly sensitive spot.

Mara smiled at her, pressed another kiss to her lips, and slowly moved downwards. She pressed her lips to each bruise she could see, layering butterfly kisses down Petra’s torso with a grin as her fingers snaked around Petra’s entrance and her nails dragged torturously slowly around her clit, never quite touching her enough to satisfy her craving for more friction. Petra whined and gently played around with the ends of Mara’s hair as her Queen slinked lower and lower, layering kisses on every mark as she went, before Mara finally reached her clit.

As soon as she did, Mara latched on with her lips and slipped a pair of fingers into Petra’s tight entrance, making her moan and whine as Mara greedily returned her favour and then some. Slowly, she spread her fingers out, searching for that particular spot that made Petra moan in the back of her throat and buck her hips into Mara’s waiting mouth, searching eagerly for more pleasure. Mara obliged her, starting to move her fingers and getting more aggressive with her tongue. In response, Petra gave another little whine, which Mara quietly filed away as the most adorable sound her Wrath had ever made, before she had a devious idea.

Gently, she grazed Petra’s clit with her teeth, the response was another little whine and a desperate and breathy plea for more, which Mara happily obliged before another devious idea popped into her mind. She began to scribe out letters with her tongue in cursive, first, the long, slow strokes of a “P”, which made Petra’s hips quiver with a barely suppressed movement and a moan of Mara’s name. She followed up with several more, spelling out “Property” with roughly the same reaction from her lover, before grazing Petra’s clit with her teeth again to mark a space and get another of the little whines she loved so much and flicking out a quick “Of” with her tongue to carry on her sentence and tease Petra a tad more, she dragged her teeth across again, a touch harder this time, which resulted in Petra’s back arching in a beautiful curve and more moaned renditions of Mara’s name. Finally, she finished up with tracing out her own name over Petra’s sensitive flesh, grinning as her soldier came hard around her fingers and against her mouth, which Mara greedily cleaned up; as well as giving a good and sensual show of cleaning up her fingers before Petra cupped her chin and pulled her up the bed for a series of deep, languid kisses that made her eyes glaze over with happiness.

Eventually, Mara slowly dragged herself away from their slow and luxurious kisses and lead Petra into her bathroom. A few minutes later found Petra sitting comfortably between Mara’s knees in the Queen’s bath as the shower poured blessedly warm water over their knees and Mara combed out and properly washed her hair with a gentle smile on her face as she combed out the tangles and worked Petra’s hair back to it’s usual silky look.

“You know…” she started, gently coaxing Petra forwards to rinse her hair under the stream and pressing a quick kiss to between her shoulder blades while she did so, “I can think of many advantages to having my Wrath be this close to me at all times.” Petra rolled her eye in response.  
“As much as I’d love to shower with you every day, my Queen” she let out a pleased groan as Mara untangled an obstinate knot and ran it through with her comb, “I do still have a job to do, and I fear if nothing else, the paperwork might get soaked beyond repair.” Mara gave a chuckle and handed her a flannel to clean up her face properly. Watching Petra gingerly dab and pat at the area surrounding her eyepatch however, Mara gently took the scrap of cloth back and did it for her, but as her fingers moved to the edge of the eyepatch to clean the spots underneath, Petra flinched away ever so slightly. Mara’s brow furrowed in concern.

“Are you ok?” she asked as her hands moved to lightly cup Petra’s chin. Petra gave her a light smile.  
“Of course my Queen, I just don’t want to trouble you with this...” she made a brief gesture to her eye “unsightly mess.”

Mara’s gaze hardened and her fingertips went to the edges of the patch with purpose. Petra tilted her head forwards as Mara removed it and brushed the back of her fingers over the flesh underneath before she got a good look at the eye itself. The wound was long since healed, and looking significantly better than the last time she’d seen it, in the hospital receiving her then-corsair’s after-action report for the Pallas Siege, but the damage was the same. Petra’s clouded but still shining electric blue eye was surrounded by gnarled flesh, puffy with long-healed scar tissue and the faded electrical burn outline of the shock stave that had very nearly cost the Wrath her life.

Mara’s lips formed one of the real smiles that Petra had come to so highly cherish in their time alone before she pressed them to her cheek below the ruined eye.  
“This doesn’t make you less beautiful.” She told Petra in no uncertain terms, slowly cleaning the area as best she could and then retrieving the eyepatch, kissing the inside before she replaced it tenderly where it normally sat with a grin. Petra rolled her sole visible eye.  
“I had no idea you possessed the capacity to be this cheesy, your grace.” Mara grumbled something about ungrateful girlfriends and ducked her head into the crook of Petra’s neck, steadfastly refusing to look at her. Petra grinned into the crown of her head and moved her hand up and down Mara’s back.

Suddenly, Mara twitched, immediately clamping down on her movement and repressing another shudder as Petra’s hand continued it’s motions. Giving an uncharacteristic yelp as Petra tantalizingly trailed her fingers down her back again, directly over the notches of her spine, Mara finally looked back up at her.  
“Do not go there with me” she threatened, before her glare was shattered as Petra dragged her fingertips over another ticklish spot and Mara let out a giggle she couldn’t help.  
“I am going to tease you for hours and never let you cum” she groused against a laughing Petra’s collarbone before she let out another giggle and then a groan into her shoulder. Petra giggled herself before replying.  
“I’ll hold you to that” she whispered, quite enjoying her Queen’s predicament, before she let out a yawn. “Possibly not now though-” she let out another yawn and was about to continue before Mara cut her off with a kiss.  
“Agreed” she murmured, blindly reaching around to turn off the shower before they both retired to her bedroom.

\---

When Mara woke five minutes before her alarm was due the next morning, she was cocooned in Petra’s warm embrace. Her soldier had wrapped both arms around her stomach and held her close the entire night, and appeared to be blissfully asleep if the quiet breaths snuffled into the nape of Mara’s neck were any indication. Ever so gently, Mara picked at her confinement, unlocking Petra’s fingers with painstaking delicacy, right up until her alarm screamed a wakeup klaxon at maximum volume. Mara lunged, desperate to turn off the offensive electronic, but found herself trapped and pulled backwards as Petra’s half-asleep brain snapped her into “protect the Queen” mode and pulled her around, dropping an arm off the back of the bed to catch the hilt of the knife in her belt and throwing it with pinpoint accuracy at the source of the noise, which emitted a painful sounding splutter and died.

A quiet cough from underneath her keyed Petra into the fact that Mara was both very much awake and currently trapped underneath her breasts. She sat with a start, freeing Mara and watching as the Queen daintily pulled the knife from the ruins of her alarm and handed it over with a dry look and a raised eyebrow. Petra chewed on her lip and blushed, accepting her knife with embarrassment as Mara examined the mess of wires and shattered plastics that used to be her alarm with disdainful prod.

“I’m sor-” Petra started, before Mara held up one finger to shush her continued to prod at her alarm for a few more seconds. With a sigh she pushed the ruined mess into the bin near her nightstand and turned to Petra.

For a long moment, there was absolute silence, and when Mara’s mouth did open Petra’s heart sank.  
“Good throw.”  
Petra’s blinked herself out of a swirling tide of self-pity  
“Wait what?”  
Mara nodded at her. “Very good throw, you do owe me a new alarm however.” She gave a smirk. “And I may need you to make it up to me later.” She blew a kiss at Petra and waltzed out of the room to take her shower, beckoning Petra to follow as she passed through the doorway.

\---

After a rather long and very steamy shower, during which Petra had very effectively made up for stabbing Mara’s alarm clock no less than three times, the two of them were finally ready to go about their days. For Mara, this consisted of running her kingdom, meetings with the advisors she wouldn’t jump into bed at her first opportunity, orders, a truly staggering amount of paperwork, and preparations for her next trip back to the Dreaming City.

Petra meanwhile, had decided to work from home that day, and after making the fast and not at all conspicuous walk to her house at a ludicrously early hour of the morning, she proceeded as normal, paperwork, break, paperwork, forget her break, paperwork, more paperwork. She was just getting into her sixth hour of thrilling report-reading action when her terminal informed her she had an incoming call from Mara. Seeing this as as good a time as any to stretch her legs, she transferred the call to her wrist device and put in an earbud, answering with a cheery and informal “Yes mistress?” as she made her way into her kitchen for a cup of tea.

She could hear Mara’s eyes roll on the other end of the line.  
“”Petra, you’re on speaker, so behave yourself.”

Petra, unfortunately, was distracted by her search for a mug, and replied without thinking.  
“What will you do if I don’t Your Majesty? Spank me?”

Immediately, a distinct cough that could only belong to Prince Uldren and a shriek of laughter that could only belong to Aaya Taan filled the channel, followed a moment later by the sound of an Awoken Paladin falling to the floor with laughter. To her immense credit, Mara replied remarkably quickly.  
“Later. You’re very, very lucky it’s only them here.”

Petra blushed from head to toe and began to stutter out apologies as fast she could manage. In the background, Aaya recovered for about half a second. “Oh Petra…” she started, “precious little Petra…” then collapsed into laughter again. In the midst of Aaya’s laughter and Uldren’s muttering about needing to unsee that mental image, Mara gave her console a dry look.  
“Congratulations, you’ve killed a Paladin and handicapped my brother in one go, I suppose this brands you as public enemy number one.”

Thoroughly embarrassed, Petra gave an indecisive “Uhm… I…” and closed the call. Mara pouted at the screen as Aaya finally levered herself up to standing again.  
“She hung up on me.” Her paladin and brother burst into new fits of laughter as Mara stood abruptly and left the hall, Uldren’s mocking following her footsteps.  
“Have a fun time, Sister;” and then, as an afterthought, “be safe!”

As she slammed the door to her office closed with all the dignity she could muster, Mara heard Aaya collapse again.

\---

When Petra showed up for her meeting the next day, it went surprisingly well. They even got through most of the items on her itinerary before Mara started sneaking in touches, then kisses, which eventually evolved into forgotten paperwork and a long and glorious make-out session that saw the Queen perched on Petra's lap and fulfilling her new favourite pastime of removing her Wrath's hair from its functional style and carding her fingers through it endlessly.

They stayed that way for a while, paperwork forgotten, what remained of their coffee and tea cooling slowly on the worktop as Mara had decided her tongue was far better tasting than Petra’s tea and decided to prove it with multiple demonstrations. This lasted roughly until Petra remembered that most of her paperwork was vital to her Queen being able to act properly as a head of state and then spent another few minutes trying to convince herself that it was worth abandoning Mara’s kisses for.

Eventually, after much pouting and false starts, Petra finally made it to her Queen’s settee, tablet in hand and intent on working, but no sooner had she sat down then Mara had perched herself on her lap with a smug grin. Petra sighed, rolled her eyes, adjusted her posture slightly to allow a very pleased Mara to lie completely on top of her like a pompous house-cat, and then continued on with her reports via her tablet; leaving Mara playing with and braiding the ends of her hair with a soft smile on her face.

When Petra was finally finished with her work an hour later, she set her tablet down and immediately grimaced at the crick in her neck; head flopping backwards with an inelegant groan. Mara giggled and trailed a line of kisses up her jawline by way of apology, working her fingers around the back of Petra’s neck and easing her muscles with agonising slowness. Petra grimaced when her Queen’s fingers hit a sore spot and Mara took the opportunity to press a brief kiss to her lips. Petra smiled.  
“If your brother could see how cute you can be.” she grinned, and promptly grimaced when Mara dug her nails into her neck.  
“I have an image to maintain, I think I want to show you this side of me a bit more.” She nipped at Petra’s jaw with her teeth. “Besides” she added as one hand snaked downwards, “I think my brother would run screaming from the room if he saw what I’m going to do to you next.” Petra grinned  
“You do still owe me a spanking, my lady.” Mara smirked back at her, mischief in her eyes.  
“Exactly.”

Several hours later saw Mara curled up in Petra’s embrace with a satisfied smile on her face. Petra herself was indulging in her long-held fantasy of getting entirely lost in Mara’s eyes. They stayed like that for some time until Mara decided enough was enough, rolled over, and went straight to sleep. Petra smiled, placed a small kiss on the back of her neck, and joined her in dreamland.

\---

They settled into a comfortable routine afterwards, meetings, couples activities, couples paperwork, it was as idyllic as dating a hands on monarch was likely to be, especially once Mara had reasons to visit the Dreaming City with Petra in tow.

The Dreaming City had always been gorgeous, wide grasslands dotted with iridescent crystals and rich with beautiful Awoken architecture. The walls themselves were tall,smooth flanks of alabaster; and at very the centre of the city lay the Queenspire, home of the royals. Mara’s personal rooms were at the very peak, shrouded in pure white cloud as the sun shone on ever-beautiful days. The Queenspire itself so massive in scale that the Queen's personal quarters was a network of rooms to rival a mansion, arranged to encompass a private garden filled with flora of every stripe. But Mara couldn’t have been less interested in the flowers if she tried.

In the middle of the garden standing tall on a cobbled section of pathway, Petra was busy with her morning shoot, honing her skills with a traditional recurve bow in nothing but a sports bra and a pair of Mara’s old trousers. The Queen herself was planted firmly in front of her single-pane window, having woken up halfway through Petra’s routine and become utterly transfixed at the sight, and Petra knew it. Every time she went to collect her arrows from the boss, she did so with show, bending over while facing in exactly the right direction to give Mara a perfect view of either of her assets. By the time she was halfway done, the Queen was dangerously close to drooling at the sight; and that wasn’t all on offer. Mara would barely have time to process one tantalizing display before Petra was back on her marker, throwing a wink over her shoulder at the window, and making the Queen drool more and more at the sight of the muscles in Petra’s toned back and arms rippling underneath her skin as she drew her high poundage bow like it was no effort at all.

Mara stayed that way for over an hour, utterly transfixed as Petra concentrated first on grouping her arrows, and then on giving Mara an awful lot of inspirational material for her rare nights alone. Eventually however, when Petra took her bow down and went to roll the boss back into the storage room, Mara managed to gather her faculties just enough to wipe the drool off her chin, and then through sheer willpower, held herself back from jumping Petra as she walked into the room, smiling coyly all the way, and straight into the bathroom to take a shower. Mara heard the water turn on, the gentle swish of fabric hitting the floor, and was about to walk away and use some of her earlier acquired “inspiration” to tide herself over when a head of magenta hair poked briefly through the doorway and an all too innocent Petra gave a pouting “My Queen, will you join me?”  
Mara was turning around and through the door before she could even think of a pithy response.

Petra was already in the shower and waiting when Mara stepped through the door, hurriedly stripping off her sleep-clothes and very eager to get her arms wrapped around her soldier. As soon as she was in the cubicle the Queen brought their lips together, standing on her tiptoes to shove her tongue as deep into Petra’s mouth as she could, the taller woman grinned into the kiss as Mara’s hands tangled in her hair before her lips moved away to leave marks on Petra’s collarbone. Her Wrath gasped and sighed, then rested her head on top of Mara’s with a smirk as her Queen continued to run her lips across her neck and chest.  
“I’ve never realised how short you are.” Mara could hear the smirk in her voice and simply rolled her eyes as she moved lower to lavish attention on Petra’s chest, getting another groan in response as her tongue moved over sensitive flesh.

Instead of allowing Mara to continue however, Petra decided to take the initiative and braced one arm against the wall before picking Mara up and holding her there, tracing her own line of kisses up Mara’s neck while her Queen wrapped her legs around her waist and dragged her nails down Petra’s back, much to her Wrath’s delight. Petra brought their lips together in a slow and languid kiss while Mara’s hands wrapped around her neck and her free hand moved around, searching for Mara’s entrance. When she found it already fairly slick with desire she grinned around the tongue in her mouth and started to play around, eliciting all sorts of delicious sounds from her Queen’s throat. Mara kept moaning as Petra picked up the pace, using her ring and pinky fingers to play about with Mara’s clit and starting to tease about with her middle and index fingers before gradually sliding them both inside. The Queen moaned luxuriously around her tongue, the sound like rich silk echoing through Petra’s skull as her Queen’s hands carded through her hair again, and her legs tightened around Petra’s waist as her inner muscles fluttered and she came around her Wrath’s fingers and moaning into her mouth.

Petra grinned as Mara gently let her self down and made sure to tease her a bit more by cleaning her fingers in the most sensual way she could. Running her tongue up and down the sides and sucking both of them into her mouth to savour the taste. Mara smirked and tangled her hand in Petra’s hair to gently push her down onto her knees.  
“If you like the taste so much then clean up after yourself properly like a good girl.” So Petra did.

One hand snaked up to Mara’s back, moving her forwards a bit to give Petra easier access with her tongue, meanwhile her other hand snuck between her own legs, teasing herself as she licked her Queen clean with a smile on her face. Mara groaned and lightly held her in place, moaning as Petra licked her already sensitive clit all the way to another orgasm and her knees went weak. After thoroughly cleaning up after herself for a second time, Petra stood back up with a self-satisfied grin as Mara slumped against the glass walls to get her breath back and enjoy the afterglow of her double orgasm. Petra wrapped her arms around her Queen and waited patiently, dotting kisses up her neck, around, and across her lips until Mara tilted her head and captured her lips to hold her in a gentle kiss, returning Petra’s embrace wholeheartedly. She moved away after a second though, spinning them around and pushing Petra up against the glass with a smirk flashing onto her lips.

Mara tangled one hand in Petra’s hair and brought the other down to play and tease around her lover’s clit, then she leant up and whispered in Petra’s ear.  
“You were very nice to me, so I will return the favour, but...” she punctuated her pause by tugging on Petra’s hair a bit, making her gasp in pleasure as Mara’s fingers skirted around her entrance, teasing her by never getting quite close enough to matter, “I’m supposed to be in control here” she whispered in Petra’s ear, adoring the pleased shiver that ran through Petra at those words; “so I still need to teach you a lesson about disregarding my authority.”

With that, she quickly thrust both fingers inside and pulled on Petra’s hair hard, making her yelp in pleasure and pain. Mara kept up her pace, fingering Petra quick and hard while using her thumb to apply constant pressure to her clit and giving the occasional sharp tug on her lover’s hair, every time making her yelp within her chorus of moans and whines. Between Mara’s fast pace and the hand in her hair adding an extra dimension to Petra’s pleasure, she didn’t last too long, coming completely undone against the shower door not once but twice as Mara pushed her quickly to cum a second time, before she cleaned up her own fingers with a sinful grin and kissed Petra gently with a soft smile on her face as her Wrath caught her breath and the shower continued to blanket them in a blessedly warm spray.

Exceedingly gently, Mara untangled her hand from Petra’s hair, gently combing out the snarls with her fingers and then rubbing conditioner throughout while working in a gentle scalp massage with the tips of her fingers to apologize for her rough treatment of Petra’s silken hair and pressing a series of kisses across her shoulders just because she could.  
“You should really leave this down.” Mara muttered as she washed all the product out and ran her fingers through again, enjoying the silkiness and the length that only she got to really appreciate. Petra shrugged but didn’t comment, quite enjoying the sensation of Mara’s gentle combing and massaging combined with pleasantly warm water hitting her back and running over her body.  
“I’m serious” Mara said idly as she continued to enjoy playing with Petra’s hair to keep her hands busy, braiding it into a dozen different styles without much thought while she tried to find something to work with the shaved side and the full length. “At least leave it down tonight when I take you out?” she asked as she finally abandoned styling and decided to just leave it to flow naturally.

Petra raised an eyebrow as she turned around to do Mara’s hair for her.  
“We’re going out?” she asked skeptically, running her fingers through Mara’s hair before starting to work the various products in herself, Mara nodded as best she could with Petra’s hands massaging around her scalp.  
“I’m the bloody Queen, if I want to take a day out of my work schedule to take my girlfriend out then I’m damn well going to.” Petra smiled and pushed her lightly under the water to wash her hair up, giving a little giggle at the unprepared splutter that emerged from Mara’s lips; and then another at the glare her Queen shot her from underneath her dripping wet fringe in what Petra instantly dubbed her “drowned cat” look. Mara’s grumpiness didn’t last long, as Petra swept her hair back into its proper form and kissed her pout away with a grin before tugging her into an embrace. Mara sighed happily and relaxed into it, tucking her head under Petra’s chin and enjoying her presence for a few more minutes before they had to get out of the shower and actually get ready.

Once the two had finally dragged themselves out of the shower, dressed, and spent a good half an hour distracting themselves with each-other, it was almost midday. Nevertheless Mara eventually got Petra out of the Queenspire and headed towards the city outskirts and the shore.

It took them a good hour and a half’s walk, hand in hand through the less populated streets and dressed in more casual clothing in an effort to avoid undue attention, and although they were still spotted and recognised, the Awoken respected their Queen’s obvious wish to be left alone with the object of her affections and they passed through the streets unhindered until eventually they left the city proper and Petra thought to actually ask where they were going.  
“Where are we actually going?” she wondered aloud as Mara swung their linked hands gently and pointed with her free hand at a barely visible structure off in the distance. Petra raised an eyebrow.  
“You’re taking me to the Spire of Keres?” Mara nodded.  
“Mmmhmm.” Petra considered this for a moment, before deciding to allow herself to be surprised.  
“Okay.” Mara smiled and they continued on.

By the time they actually reached the spire it was well into the afternoon and both the light and the heat were dying down, a fact made well apparent by Mara starting to shiver as she pushed open the door to the interior and cursed softly at the lack of heat. In response Petra shrugged off her jacket and draped it over her Queen’s shoulders, laughing softly as a jacket tailored to her muscular frame swallowed Mara’s lithe build whole and Mara immediately wrapped herself up in it, thankful for the warmth before she led them to the upper floor and the balcony with an uninterrupted view of coastline fading off into infinity.

With Mara sitting next to her, their hands intertwined, and leaning their heads together, Petra was given the best possible view of sunset over the coast.

The bright white faded into dull orange and finally into a light pink, casting the smoky water aflame with a scintillating sea of ever-changing colours which glimmered and flickered like candle light in a darkened room and stretched all the way to the horizon. As the sun fell below the horizon and the clouds above the water turned multicoloured from the ever-present stars becoming more prominently visible, Mara shifted herself, moving languidly over into Petra’s lap and finally pressing a soft kiss to her lips as the moon climbed into view above them.

Petra smiled and relaxed into Mara’s kiss with a smile, slipping her arms underneath the too-large jacket and wrapping them gently around Mara’s waist as her Queen’s hands settled lightly around her neck. When they eventually broke apart, Mara’s glowing eyes hovered just a few inches in front of her face and Petra found herself speechless except for three important words.  
“I love you.” Without hesitation, Mara’s eyes locked onto Petra’s sole visible one and she replied in kind.  
“I love you too.”

They shared another soft and slow kiss to round off their time at the spire and then headed back up to the city, Mara still wrapped up in Petra’s jacket.

The path back to the city was equally as beautiful during the night, illuminated by Awoken lanterns strung up along the path right up the gates. They passed almost no-one on their way back, barring a few corsairs running standard patrols, and the city streets were almost deserted barring a few wanderers. Neither of them said much on the walk, content to enjoy each other's company. It was only once they were back in bed, warm under a centrally-heated roof, that Petra spoke for the first time in a while.  
“Thank you for tonight Mara.” Her Queen smiled at her in the darkness.  
“Any time, my love.” And with that said, she lay her head in the space between the crook of Petra’s neck and her pillow and was out like a light. Petra pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead and joined her.

\---

The first thing Mara did when she heard from her scouts that Oryx was arriving in Sol was send for Petra, the second was to throw her advisors out of the room, and the third was to retreat to her office to formulate a plan.

By the time Petra arrived on the heels of an urgent summons, Mara was pretty well sorted with a plan, she was also sitting at her desk, head in her hands, wondering how she was going to explain this plan to Petra. When she tried, her Wrath was silent for a long while to form her response.  
“You want to go on a guaranteed suicide mission the try and galvanise the city into action so that you can hopefully come back through a method you don’t even know can really work?” Mara grimaced and swallowed around the lump in her throat.  
“Kind of?” Petra sighed and entwined her fingers with Mara’s, stroking her hair gently.  
“And there is no alternative?” Mara glared at her.  
“You are welcome to suggest one.” Petra grimaced.

They spent hours going over everything, battle plans, every vague report of Hive technology they could find, even consulting with the Techeuns in the Dreaming City before finally, Petra admitted defeat and they made preparations, issued orders, then took a final trip to the city as it was evacuated.

When Mara brought her to the spire, Petra almost cried, but she knew she couldn’t afford to show that much weakness, as Mara explained to her the finer points of the Oracle and how it factored into her plan, Petra did her best to stay attentive, memorising the basic points of the workings and committing firmly to memory every single detail. Eventually, when Mara was done explaining and answering a variety of questions, as well as giving Petra two offerings, one left in the machine to be used upon the Awoken’s return, and one to be used for Petra and Petra alone; she took them up to the balcony to watch the sunset for the last time in a long time, and Petra finally allowed herself to process her emotions.

Slowly, she felt her eyes grow hot with unshed tears and only just managed to remove her eyepatch before it got wet as the smoky coastline turned a hundred gorgeous shades of orange and pink. As the stars came out she let her tears fall freely, holding on to her Queen as Mara kissed her tears away and reassured her she’d be back. Once her sobbing had stopped, Mara explained her back-up plan.  
“Hive legend says” she started, “that Oryx brought back his sisters from from their true deaths by re-confirming their essences upon reality.” Petra nodded, she’d read as much in their research, and Mara continued. “If that’s true, and this plan doesn’t work as intended.” she felt her heart break at Petra’s expression but soldiered on. “Then you are my backup.” Mara kissed her to make sure her point was communicated properly and pressed her hands over Petra’s heart. “Remember me truly as I am, keep me in your heart, and I’ll always come back for you.” Petra managed a weak smile, and for the last time in a long time, they kissed gently underneath a shining silver moon.

They didn’t see each-other much after that, duties and preparations for war running them ragged, but as they went to bed on the final night before the Awoken went to war, Mara was taken utterly by surprise as Petra took her to bed with gusto in one final night of passion. Afterwards, as Petra crawled her way up the bed and took her place behind a very satisfied Mara, she whispered a sad-sounding “see you in the morning” her ear, along with a tear-filled and intimate send off.  
“Do not go gentle into that good night.”

They caught each other for two minutes after the ceremony but before the ships departed the next day, just enough time to exchange a final whispered kiss and promise before Mara was forced to leave. Just as she walked away, she felt Petra press something into her hand, and looked back to see Petra staring at her with tears shining in both her eyes. Mara tucked the eyepatch under her jacket, directly above her heart, and went to war.

\---

Petra was watching the live feed as the signal was lost, and she felt her heart being ripped out and torn to bloodied shreds as she knew there was no physical way that Mara could have survived. But she had to hold fast, she’d stayed in the reef specifically as planned, becoming acting regent-commander as her position dictated and slowly starting to enact her Queen’s plan to bring the royals back.

She met with Guardians on the daily, issuing bounties and take-down notices for taken generals and soldiers and never really allowing herself to stop long enough to have to process Mara’s death. She took on the lion share of the political and day to day work necessary to keep the reef functioning as a society, if only to keep her busy. As the war came and passed, Petra operated on autopilot, going through her daily training and completing her assigned tasks as rote, until finally, a report landed on her desk from the Tower, where the final termination of Oryx was being reported. For the first time in a while, Petra smiled, then she began the second stage of the plan.

Uldren was a hitch she hadn’t predicted.

When he was brought in, she’d been saddened, the only surviving royal, gone insane with grief and misery, now languishing in the prison of elders and claiming he heard Mara’s voice in his head again. But his uprising, a jailbreak, the murder of the reef’s closest ally in the city and her personal friend Cayde-6, combined with his cold-blooded murder of dozens of the Reef’s citizens. It was almost too much for her to bear, so she sent the guardian out to cull the leadership and took to hunting the wayward crow herself.

Occasionally, she would be haunted by a spectre of Mara’s presence, a taunting, tempting voice in the back of her mind, sometimes even appearing as a full fledged hallucination. Petra tried to grit her teeth and ignore it’s poisonous words, but it was so persistent that her mind latched onto the idea that perhaps she wasn’t quite mad enough to be having these sort of thoughts yet. So she decided to test her “hallucination”. 

She started small, questions, answers, almost a conversation, but careful to keep her guard up, slowly, she built and revised a hypothesis, and an idea that seemed almost impossible in the beginning began to seem more and more reasonable as she put the clues together.

Combined with Uldren’s testimony upon his arrival in the Reef, Petra was able to deduce that her hallucination was not of her own mind, she remembered Mara better, the smile was a tad too wide, the subtle meanings in her words far too predatory, some tiny gaps in knowledge and speech patterns that shattered the whole illusion. It walked like Mara and talked like Mara, but Petra had no desire to find out if it kissed like Mara too. Nevertheless she went deeper, determined to find out what was messing with her until eventually the answer seemed almost stupidly obvious. Riven.

The Ahamkara was the only thing that could have been powerful enough to do this good of a job messing with her perception, she’d checked her supplies for hallucinogens, run every standard check she could think of, and examined the situation as best she could. So she decided to banish her spectre the next time it appeared.

It was bad luck that it would happen as she tracked Uldren to the dead-zone, even worse that she threw the Ahamkara out of her head mere hours before the prince’s gambit, allowing him preternatural warning of her position. Bitter, she was forced to abandon her hunt as unsuccessful and bank everything on the Guardian, providing all the support she could as she led them to assault the tower where Uldren was planning to undo all the work she’d put in to bring Mara back from the grave.

She couldn’t have been more proud of her light-bearing cousin, slaughtering Riven’s monstrous invasion at the source and finally leading them into being able to put a bullet in Uldren for good. With that temporary setback dealt with, she gave her cousin a broken but repairable key to the city and started making her preparations for the penultimate stage of the plan. Contacting Mara.

Her return to the Dreaming City was bittersweet, the knowledge that the Taken were desecrating sacred ground and that the Techeuns themselves had been taken shattered her already broken heart, but there was no enemy force that she thought could not be eradicated with enough effort, the Oracle itself presented many challenges, but when the Guardian returned with an offering stolen by the scorn, her heart was filled with unusual trepidation.

Nothing could have prepared Petra for how it would feel to hear Mara’s voice again. She barely kept herself together, only sticking to formal questions when she realised her Guardian counterpart was in the room with them, hoping her cousin hadn’t noticed her slip and barely holding herself back from tears as Mara’s final few words, although still shrouded in necessary formality, were infused with a warmth that lifted a heavy pressure from her heart and let her breathe easy for the first time in over a year.  
“Stay strong my Wrath, I believe in you.”

Then she sent the guardians to kill Riven.

Every Awoken in the city felt the great creature die, a psychic howl echoing down her spine, but Petra hadn’t expected the full ramifications of the kill to be quite so dire. As the dragon was felled, taken presence skyrocketed, blights and all manner of creatures appeared, infesting the city and surrounding lands. Hive appeared, apparently hell-bent on stealing Awoken relics and technology, the City erupted into chaos. With a heavy heart, Petra went to use her offering to speak to Mara alone.

Her hands trembled as she set the machine away, and not even Mara’s soothing answer could solve the heavy heart she held at her monumental failure. Until Mara explained the full effect of her plan. By the end, Petra was more hurt than angry.  
“Why only tell me this now?” to her credit, Mara’s reply sounded appropriately apologetic.  
“I didn’t think it would be necessary, I hoped I was wrong, I didn’t expect to need this part.” she sighed. “I am sorry, Petra. Are you okay?” Petra shrugged and then remembered her Queen couldn’t see her.  
“I’ll be okay” she said, lips twisted into an unimpressed grimace. “I’ll have time to be angry at you when you’ve come back to me.” Mara chuckled at that.  
“Fair.”

\---

The day Mara did return, Petra felt the hole in her heart finally close for good. And after thanks, appraisals of the war, meetings, and a reaction of apocalyptic proportions to what Uldren had done to her Throne room, Mara and Petra finally, eventually, got to spend time with each other again.

The second they were through the door of Petra’s reef-side house Mara brought their lips together in a frantic kiss, desperately seeking Petra’s embrace and having her needs wholeheartedly reciprocated as Petra replied in kind. As they separated Mara gave her a gleaming smile.  
“I’ve been waiting so long to do that again.” Petra smiled back and found herself being pulled very quickly upstairs in the direction of her bedroom, before she was shoved onto the bed and Mara set about teasing her very slowly.  
“I have a lot to reward you for…” the Queen drawled, all grace and elegance; “but I’ve also got a couple of things to punish you for.” Petra’s eye dilated and Mara gave her a smirk. “What would you like me to do?” Petra swallowed around the lump in her throat.  
“Punish me first, my Queen.” Mara gave an evil smile.  
“I was hoping you’d say that. Now strip.”

Petra did as commanded, shimmying out of her trousers and shirt in record time and presenting herself naked in front of Mara as soon as she could. Her Queen took a moment to enjoy the sight, shrugging off her own jacket languidly and enjoying the way Petra’s eye followed her every movement as she slowly removed her clothing as slowly and languidly as possible. When she’d finished, she decided to start teasing Petra as slowly as she possibly could.

It started with light touches, brushing her fingers along Petra’s abdomen and tracing her finely sculpted physique, slowly but surely, Mara worked her way around to Petra’s clit, teasing her fingers around the entrance and then easing back, playfully pushing Petra’s hips down and away when she chased her hand searching for more friction. Eventually, Mara moved up and lay on top of her, keeping her fingers circling just around Petra’s entrance to keep her slick with arousal. Her wrath moaned and whined beneath her, bucking her hips and always searching for a little more contact, but Mara kept her close and slowly built her up even more, constantly slipping her fingers in and out before retreating just as Petra started to really squirm.

She kept at it for almost 30 minutes, giving Petra light and teasing kisses throughout just to torment her a bit more before finally, with Petra begging, moaning and pleading beneath her for any for of release, she let her cum with a final kiss.

Petra moaned around Mara’s invasive tongue as she came, her inner muscles clenching hard around her Queen’s fingers as her thumb rubbed gentle circles over Petra’s clit to sooth her aching and oversensitive flesh. Mara gave Petra a sultry grin and cleaned her fingers up mere inches from her face, always enjoying being able to give Petra that nice show.  
“Thank you my Queen” her soldier sighed in bliss, a slightly delirious smile on her face as Mara gave a her a smile and another kiss.  
“Don’t thank me yet, I still need to give you my reward for being such a good girl and bringing me back.”

Petra’s breath hitched in anticipation as Mara moved lower, kissing her way down Petra’s chest and stomach until she reached her still soaked clit. She started slowly, teasing licks and nips at sensitive flesh as she built up to a brisk pace that had Petra moaning her name in ecstasy as she quickly came again, but Mara didn’t stop there, maintaining her quick pace and adding an extra finger to make her cum for a third time before Petra could even get over her second orgasm. Mara had a Cheshire cat’s grin plastered on her face as she cleaned up with her tongue, a few more long gentle strokes to ease Petra down from her high before she trailed butterfly kisses back up her abdomen and chest.

Petra captured her lips in a quick kiss as soon as she could, enjoying the way Mara’s tongue easily slipped into her mouth as she smiled into the kiss, hands playing with the ends of Mara’s hair while the Queen pressed kisses all over her jaw with a smile.  
“Please don’t leave me again” Petra whispered between kisses, Mara smiled back at her.  
“I don’t plan on it, it was dreadfully boring without anyone to talk to.” Petra rolled her eyes.  
“May I pleasure you now, my Queen?” Mara smirked.  
“Certainly.”

Petra urged her upwards and Mara took the hint, positioning herself directly over Petra’s face with a grin as her Soldier dove right in, hands on Mara’s thighs to hold her still and her tongue probing around her slit. The Queen gasped in pleasure as Petra sucked her clit into her mouth, before going to back to quick, short strokes and bringing one her hands around for extra stimulation. Mara’s fingers wound themselves in Petra’s hair in response, pulling lightly as Petra moaned and redoubled her efforts to get Mara off. To that end, she slipped one finger and then another inside, massaging Mara’s clit with her tongue whilst she searched around for any sensitive spots; as soon as she found one Mara moaned her name and her inner muscles clenched, Petra grinned, nipped at her Queen’s clit lightly with her teeth, and flexed her fingers again. Mara came utterly apart, moaning Petra’s name over and over as she came undone around her fingers and tongue.

Mara moved away after she’d caught her breath, a genuine smile on her face as she moved herself down in bed to cuddle up to Petra and enjoy the afterglow of her orgasm. Petra smiled as she folded her up in her embrace, then lifted her covers up over them, reasoning they could shower when they woke up. As they both drifted off to sleep, she whispered a tired  
“Welcome home” against Mara’s lips. The last thing she heard before sweet dreams claimed them both was Mara tucking her head under Petra's chin and a warm  
“It’s good to be home.”


End file.
